Palmer, who was forced to suspend his Bloomington dentistry practice amid the global outrage to the killing, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune on Monday that “everything is just fine”, but he declined to reveal his location or field any questions.
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A Zimbabwean safari operator accused of facilitating an illegal lion hunt for an American citizen in April denies the bow and arrow kill was unlawful and says his client acted in “good faith”.
The second American recently accused by the Zimbabwean government of illegally hunting in the African nation wasn’t in Zimbabwe when the incident is alleged to have happened, his lawyer said Tuesday.
Cecil’s head is now with the authorities after it was found in the home of Theo Bronkhorst, said to be a guide on the hunt that saw the cat killed.
The Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force reports that Cecil’s brother, Jericho, was also shot and killed in an illegal hunt. “We want him (Palmer) to be extradited and tried in Zimbabwe“, she said, as quoted in a report by Xinhua. “I deeply regret that my pursuit of an activity I love and practice responsibly and legally resulted in the taking of this lion”.
Now, the Disney film The Lion King has had the spoof treatment in “The Retribution of Cecil“, a satirical look at the intense anger towards Palmer, which has included for calls for the dentist to be skinned and hung. It is so heartbreaking that not only are they killed but shot with a bow and arrow and then forced to suffer for days before finally being slaughtered is so horrendous!
“I do not feel I have done anything wrong”, Bronkhorst told NBC via telephone.
Stewart Dorrington, operator of Melorani Safaris in South Africa, said Seski had hunted on his property and all his actions there were “perfectly legal”.
“Many people ask about the fate of Cecil’s cubs – we are keeping watch”, he said in a statement.
“Jericho is alive and well”, said Professor David Macdonald of Oxford University’s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, which had been tracking Cecil and Jericho by satellite.
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But in a statement issued by his attorney, Seski said he had engaged in a “lawfully permitted hunt” and that it happened in July, not April, as Zimbabwe officials had said. Bronkhorst noted that the pair decided to kill an old male lion that they believed to be past breeding age and said Palmer “is a totally innocent party to this whole thing”, having “bought a hunt from me that was legitimate”. “We have no further details but will advise as soon as we know more”.
